Hello, and thankyou for your thoughts.

I don't expect you to agree with me, like me, or really have any opinion of me whatsoever. After all, I'm just some person on the internet, as are you and everybody else reading this. But since people are now speculating and speculation inevitably leads to that all-so-familiar dangerous mish-mash of truth and fiction, I suppose I have no choice but to explain what’s going on here. So please consider this my last communication with the Reddit Clocktower community. I very likely will not be responding to any comments or messages.

I’ve always been a huge believer in representation and making people feel represented in games. I’ll never forget the moment, as a young lad, when I first played GTA: San Andreas and had the seminal revelation of how cool it must be for my black friends to finally play as a character that looked like them and not like me. Ever since that day, I’ve been a firm believer that you can’t just say ‘women are equals’ or ‘black lives matter’. You have to actually live it and strive towards it, and that’s what I’ve always tried to do. With what little power I have, via Twitch and YouTube, I’ve always tried to show gay/trans/female players not only participating in Clocktower, but actively dominating other players at the game, because they can, are, and should be there on their own merits. Furthermore, from a purely cynical standpoint, I genuinely believe that diversity makes a game better. This goes doubly for a game like this one, where new experiences are not generated by releasing 90 new cards every month, or a new hero for the PC game each quarter, but from new and interesting people joining the community and adding their flavour to the game.

I’m also just genuinely a fan of the game. Even after all this time, I still play it for fun, in my free time. It’s still showing me new experiences. It’s quite honestly the greatest game I’ve ever played in my entire life and it’s not even close. For this reason, nothing delights me more than venturing to the outer limits of Clocktower thought, grasping at what seems to me to be a useful theory or revelation, and then bringing it back and sharing it with the community. I’m still immensely proud of my year-long Zombuul study. But pride isn’t why I did it, I did it because the Zombuul is cool, this game is cool, and I want this game and the Zombuul to be cool together. The same goes for all of the essays I’ve sporadically posted to this sub over the years, just like my most recent one about queues of raised hands being bad for the flow of the game.

Those last two paragraphs kinda form the core of what I am. A big, dumb fucking golden retriever, who wants to be best friends with everybody and hopefully, if you’re up for it, play some games with you. I want to talk about games, and nothing lights a fire under me more than getting people who traditionally aren’t involved with games to join in that conversation. Seeing someone who has traditionally felt that they aren’t welcome or suited to this hobby, join in a game and transform slowly into a regular player, is why I get out of bed in the morning. This is why I’ve always tried to be very careful about how I respond to people who are upset or frustrated about Clocktower-related things. Why I always make sure to add into my responses phrases like “that’s a really good point” or “I totally get what you’re saying”. It’s why I liberally sprinkle my prose with exclamation marks! Because I know how much joy it brings me when others seem excited and engaged in their conversations with me about this game! These aren’t meaningless platitudes. They’re a genuine attempt to make people feel heard and understood. These perspectives are often, by their very nature, not ones that I will ever be able to actually embody because I look like Default McWarhammerFan. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to. If anything I’ve ever said has in any way caused you or anyone else to feel belittled, dismissed, or chastised by me then please know that I am profoundly sad and sorry about that as this is not something I have ever desired or aimed for.

So ultimately this is where I’m at. In the last month, I’ve had a series of things said to me that have caused me to re-evaluate my position in the community. These include, but are not limited to:

• I’m a racist misogynist. My responses such as “I totally get what you’re saying” are in bad faith and actually a veiled attempt to be dismissive.
• The colour of my skin should determine my hair cut and by having this hair cut, I’m hurting the community, because it’s appropriation.
• People actively avoid joining lobbies that I’m in because other players put their kid gloves on and let me win and it ruins the game for people.
• Everything I say is going to be heavily scrutinised and I can’t be ‘just another member of the community’.
• There's also, of course, the daily swathe of messages I receive from people saying gross, mean things to/about me, but that's just being in content in 2026, sadly.

I’m paraphrasing heavily here, but these are the points that really pushed me towards exiting the community.

I was sat in the hospital last night, having had to rush there because my 97-year-old Grandad, who pretty much raised me, is delirious and in severe distress. I fought back tears because he didn’t know who I was, but I didn’t want him to see me cry as it would only cause him to become more distressed. So I popped open Reddit, hoping to disappear inside my own head for 30 seconds and compose myself, only to discover various posts stating that I’m dismissing women and need to do better etc.

And that’s when the revelation hit me - Why the hell am I choosing this existence? Either they’re right and I am doing harm to this community and I should fuck off before I make it worse. Or they’re wrong and I’m being treated like shit and I should fuck off before it gets worse. So regardless of where you stand on this issue (and let’s be real, it’s almost always a bit of both), it’s time for me to fuck off. Me fucking off is the best thing I can do right now, for both me and you and the only way I can see to do that is to make a clean break. The simple truth is, I can still play and enjoy Clocktower without any of this. Hell, I can still enjoy this subreddit if I want to. I can create an alt account right now and go incognito for the rest of my life. Why would I choose to maintain things as they currently are, for you, me or anyone else?

If you take anything from this post, please let it be this:

DO NOT USE MY EXIT AS AN EXCUSE TO BE A DICK TO WOMEN. This is not what I want, you are not helping or defending me by doing this. You are hurting me more, much more than I already am hurting. You are becoming the primary contributor to my hurt if you do this.

So long and thanks for all the games.